Hi Caroline,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were universalism, benevolence, and stimulation.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was openness.
You said your top three talents were NA, NA, and NA.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to sleeping 8 hours every day .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Runs productive committee meeting .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Start off the semester on a good foot with my committee, improve DEI at Wharton .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Lack of motivation .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in Music .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt Contemplative when receiving critical feedback, and Contemplative when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a moderate amount of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Health .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to Other .
In one word, you said it made you feel Vulnerable .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
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Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
| |
| Grit is about length of time and not intensity |
| I took the class four times and every time it got more interesting |
| Your future career is a combination of A B and C |
| Self concordat goals are things that you want to do by yourself without others input |
| Contrasting obstacles and outcomes creates action |
| Deliberate practice is not pleasurable but it enables things that are pleasurable |
| Habits are best changed situationally |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
| |
| Susanna Liu |
| Caroline is such a genuinely funny person and she never fails to make our team laugh. She is very positive and can always brighten up our teams’ mood when we’re having a bad day. She is also incredibly thoughtful and kind, which can be seen through her actions, from the time she brought us chocolate after her trip to London to helping connect me with my Discovery Project BFF. Throughout the semester, I've come to appreciate her profound other-oriented approach, which is clearly demonstrated in her Discovery Project.
I was super impressed by Caroline’s Discovery Project. I remember hearing her tell our group about the curiosity conversation she had with the Penn grad who founded Childbirth International. It was awesome to see how that conversation inspired and informed her discovery project. From her presentation, I learned a lot about how different people and organizations approach philanthropy. I also learned about the challenges that international philanthropy projects can face. Caroline – I think your work with the Malaysian school is incredible and I aspire to be as giving and as gritty as you. I’m so glad we met through this class and I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate! Grit Gals Forever :) |
| Sarah Silver |
| Caroline, you have such an infectious smile that immediately brought our team together! You always think outside the box, and I love how you bring such a unique perspective to each of our weekly 16-minute chats. You’re incredibly creative, and I’m especially impressed by that pasta dish you made for your roommate! You always know how to brighten my day, whether that’s a funny anecdote or grabbing smoothies. I’m so glad we met and became close over the semester - you really played a huge role in making this class so impactful. I’m going to miss seeing you every Tuesday, but I know the Grit Gals will definitely stay in contact!
I was especially moved by your Discovery Project. I had never thought about combining sustainability with education, and I loved learning about the time you spent teaching at a refugee school while studying abroad in Singapore! I especially found your revelation at the Rockefeller Foundation to be particularly intriguing. I was originally shocked when you said that the speaker claimed he didn’t like charity, but after your explanation, I found my own perspective on charity changing. I felt that your curiosity conversation with Lucy Li added an additionally robust element to your project, and I particularly enjoyed hearing about her insights on the values of communication and community in international teaching and education. You did such a great job with your project and presentation, and I’m really glad I got to follow along with your Discovery Project journey throughout the semester! |
| Rafaella Lambrinos |
| Caroline’s ability to listen is truly amazing; not only does she remember every detail of a conversation, but she also offers meaningful and insightful comments. Caroline is really easy to talk to and confide in because she makes everyone feel safe and understood. She is always smiling, and her positive energy is infectious. Seeing how much passion she has for her interests is inspiring. I find myself admiring her for the genuine enthusiasm she brings to everything she does, and I’m glad that Grit Lab brought us together.
Caroline’s presentation was very insightful. Prior to her presentation, I never knew much about education in international development. I enjoyed her point about the importance of looking to create scalable sustainable resources. Learning about her tutoring project with a school in Malaysia was both interesting and inspiring; it was so impressive to see how much Caroline has already accomplished, and all the goals she has set for the future. |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.